That is helpful, but still far from a couple paragraphs. Nobody owes me anything on this, but I am not taking the energy to parse through this and then SO's responses and then reread TFA to get an actual factual sequence of events here, which ultimately ended in someone losing their moderation status on a Q&A website. This probably comes off as really callous but honestly, Watergate or the Bay of Pigs or (more close to home) Stallman's resignation can be explained in a couple of sentences.

On a mod and employee chat group, they were discussing a new future code of conduct. One element said "You must use people's preferred pronouns if given". A mod (volunteer) (Monica) said "Is it OK if I never use any 3rd person singular pronouns?" She got no answer for a while and was then fired as a mod on Friday at 6pm less than 1 hour before before Shabbat and Rosh Hashana (she is Jewish and a mod of the Jewish Stack Exchange). Stack exchange published a note saying she broke the code of conduct. 73 other mods then either resigned or went inactive.

Could you please help me understand how this relates to Cellio's previous concerns in October 2018 about a problem with Twitter and customer support and moderation?

Does that concern ( https://medium.com/@cellio/dear-stack-overflow-we-need-to-ta... ) have anything to do with the pronoun code of conduct problem at issue here, or is it totally unrelated other than Cellio's involvement?

I have to admit, having read Cellio's summary of the situation, I'm puzzled why "avoid using pronouns to refer to people where possible" would be a controversial view. If you use the wrong one, it may cause harm. If you use none at all, your interaction is more futureproof. For example, if I write about a person who feels comfortable being called "him" but the person later chooses to prefer being called "her", but if if I had avoided using "him" entirely in the first place, then I would never worry about having to retroactively edit or delete my writing to avoid harm.

> Does that concern have anything to do with the pronoun code of conduct problem at issue here, or is it totally unrelated other than Cellio's involvement?

No, it's an entirely seperate issue. However, it's a symptom of the same general problem of the company prioritizing its political/profit-seeking/marketing agendas while ignoring its community (there were dozens of relevant feature requests that had been ignored for years, yet the company took drastic action within 40 minutes of a Twitter post).

> I'm puzzled why "avoid using pronouns to refer to people where possible" would be a controversial view.

None of the details are public; all we really have so far is a couple vague summaries, plus a few more hints and implications. However, it seems the company's reasoning seems to be something along the lines of "if you avoid using third-person pronouns, then you're refusing to acknowledge people's identities."

The October 2018 incident was the previous round of Twitter warriors harrassing SE into kowtowing to their agenda at the expense of the SE user community.

Thank you, if this is accurate it's perfect.

Note that nearly every time communities begin discussing the authoritative forcing of community members to use "correct pronouns" in communications, it invariably ends in firings, resignations, and the community bitterly divided.

It's ironic that certain social activists, who outwardly claim to be motivated by a desire for mutual respect and an acceptance by the community for diverse lifestyles, are so quick to destroy the reputations of those who show even the smallest hint of resistance to their demands. The type of respect they truly seek is that which comes from the fear of the consequences of anything less than total agreement.

Wow, the extreme vagueness there, the perfect conviction in their rightness. I have no idea what the actual situation was, but that kind of writing makes me deeply suspicious I'm not getting both sides.

That is one side of the story. I'm quite certain there's another side to it, as with anything. (In fact, I'm quite certain there's many more sides to it, with all the people who have jumped on.)

Is there a TLDR of what happened anywhere?

Seems like there was a disagreement regarding the use of gender pronouns that resulted in 73 moderators getting "fired" or leaving.

The author of that summary mentioned one thing I found especially egregious, which is a policy that stated avoiding using pronouns was out of alignment. If I understand correctly, when she asked how they would know if she was avoiding pronouns or just naturally not writing them, she was fired. I may have this wrong as I just skimmed the summary. Also it seems she had multiple disagreements on this front before.

Is the implication that the LGBTQ+ community found it _more_ offensive to use e.g. "they" than "he" or "she"?

I'm so confused. Wouldn't "they" (the gender neutral version) be _more_ inclusive? Is there some other alternative that's even better that I haven't considered? I hope I'm not offending anyone by asking this. Just trying to make sure I understand.

Yes, people will often find it offensive if you use "they" after asked to use "he" or "she".

If someone says "I am a man, please use he/him for my pronouns" and you use 'they' - that would generally be considered at least odd, if not inappropriate.

I don't think that means it's inappropriate to use "they" as the default if no other information exists though.

uh but using "they" as a neutral way to talk about anyone is just fine. people have been doing that for literally centuries, its called "singular they"

this is all about people wanting to be outraged for no reason

"Singular they" is indeed well used, but it's not normally used when the gender of the person in question is explicitly known.

If you use "they" for someone who has specifically said to you "please use the pronouns 'she/her' when referring to me", you are being rude, not neutral.

"Where's Dave?"

"They're in the garage, I think"

is common to hear, just as

"He's in the garage, I think"

Many will mix between the "he/she" and "they" in the same conversation. Quite often referring to their closest friends and family rather than pointed attempt to misuse a pronoun.

> ["They"] is common to hear, just as ["He"]

> Many will mix between the "he/she" and "they" in the same conversation.

That does not match my observed reality at all. All natural languages I know are gendered the same way English is.

Singular "they" is already exceedingly uncommon by itself; and across all the languages, and in my whole life-time, never once I or a conversation partner used "they" instead of the specialised pronoun, or mixed in a conversation, when the gender of the person in question is explicitly known as GP wrote. The same is true for all written material I read in my whole life.

All I can say is it matches mine. So we're at impasse I guess.

English speech varies. Even across the UK there are dozens of regional accents and dialects. Now add the many regional variations across the USA and other world Englishes. All with their own traits and habits, some more widespread than others. A deep rabbit hole with many forks then.

Common enough that I would not think it the slightest bit unnatural on hearing, or give it a second thought. I wouldn't give it a second thought reading it in a natural conversation in a book - not just in intentionally neutral business or net writing, so that's not going to be memorable. It's not an idiom I'd single out as localised to any one group or region. It would be memorable and feel odd reading if it were all that way in a novel's quoted conversation, or nearly all names with few pronouns like some telesales scripts seem to encourage.

Not as common as he/she certainly, but I dunno 1:4 or 1:8 or something. I couldn't say what proportion is names not pronouns either. FWIW My people skew international, educated, Scots and perhaps city in a part of the UK that's well north of London.

ok so what? the entire problem is its not known because its different than normal. so we cant use the default gender because someone somewhere might not agree? and we cant use singular they because they dont like it?

so what, we need to read minds? why? for the 0.01% of people who demand everyone else change? how about we forget all this and stick to the defaults. if YOU have a specific pronoun then you can ask but we dont need to rewrite posts and content at all

> "Where's Dave?" > "They're in the garage, I think"

I am born and raised US, have lived all over west coast and midwest, and have traveled extensively throughout all regions of US. I have never heard people use the singular they in this pattern.

Where are you from? Wondering if perhaps it is a regional dialect difference.

North West of England. My circle skews international, educated, Scots and perhaps city. I've not noticed it as specific to any of the many regional or international dialects. So I can't pick it out as Scots or Mancunian for instance.

It may fall under the generic UK North-South speech and language split.

a lot of times its when youre talking about people where you dont know the name or gender but its a single person

easy to just say "they" instead of he or she. if you know what they are then you wouldnt keep using they

Monica wanted to write in a way such that she would never use the words "he", "she", or singular "they". Stack Exchange said it's not OK to write in a restricted way like that, the words must be used.

As I understood it, Stack Exchange didn't say anything. They just fired her for asking.

They said that by firing her.

1 was fired. 73 then left in support of her.

Moderator got fired for wanting to not use pronouns at all, because they though preferred pronouns were confusing to non-native English speakers instead of preferred pronouns.

Based on GP's link: Controversy over gender pronouns